The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Darwin, Francis. n.d. [Note on Adolphe Brongniart's article in Bulletin de la Société botanique de France]. CUL-DAR209.14.174. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 9.2020. RN1

NOTE: Adolphe Théodore Brongniart (1801-1876), French botanist and professor at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. 1854 Founded the Société Botanique de France and was its first president.

Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin.

Bull de la Soc de France TVII 1860 p 470

A. Brogniart [Brongniart] says that Marsilea quadrifolia & pubecens (Cryptogames) at night go to sleep & apply one leaf to the other by their upper surfaces like two firs of the leaflets of mimosa. Also a gross Strephium guianense at night places the upper surface of one leaf against the inferior surface of the upper leaf so that all the leaves become imbricated & embrace the stem. The blade of the leaf is separated by a "bourrelet" from the lower part which forms a sort of patiole & the bourrelet reminds us of the enlargement at the base of the leaves of mimosa.

(Perhaps I could get these plants from Kew)

N.B The only monocot known to Brogniart which sleeps, & only cryptogame.

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)